Indian Express has two voices that do not like RSS or BJP
or Hindu resurgence in India.
You scroll down articles of either Christophe
Jaffrelot or Ashutosh
Varshney and get the drift. Jaffrelot is more scholarly and dense; Varshney
more sound and less substance. Both are present in Indian Express of today, dominating
two separate pages.

- Advertisement -

Jaffrelot is the crudest today than he has perhaps ever been
in his long association with the Indian Express. All the veneers of scholarly
nuances are out of the window. What remains is a pen-pusher who is unsure of
his dwindling influence over the readers or his promoters. The crux
of his agenda is that lynchings is orchestrated by the present dispensation who
appear in different garbs at different times: RSS, its affiliates, BJP etc. He
terms it the "deep state." Everything that's wrong with Modi's India--the
"cruelty" against Muslims and Dalits--is part of a larger design. In his view, India
is a theocratic state in the making.

To Jaffrelot's misfortune, Varshney has a detailed interview
on page 25 with Waltern Andersen who has a new book, "The RSS: A view to the
inside" in the market. It completely debunks Jaffrelot's argument that RSS and
its affiliates are the "deep state" in India. Indeed, Varshney couldn't
have done a better service to RSS or BJP with this interview (a must read, I
say).

Now Varshney must not have bargained for it but the Andersen
interview is a validation of RSS. All Indian Express could do was to pick a
comment as headline: "A battle between Hindutva and Hinduism is coming." I will
reserve dwelling on this headline in the end: I promise the irony in it would
have you doubling up in uncontrollable laughter.

- Advertisement -

The interview first establishes the credentials of Andersen:
the only scholar to have observed the RSS for five decades. Then Varshney rolls
out the questions, which reflect his own venom:

Ashish Shukla is an Indian journalist and author who has his new book:"HOW UNITED STATES SHOT HUAMNITY: Muslims Ruined Europe Next" released worldwide.
He also runs a website: www.newsbred.com which is antidote to boardroom bulletins that (more...)